El. knyga: Songs and Musicians in the Fifteenth Century

Covers composition and repertoire in England and mainland Europe, and performance throughout the continent. The specific topics include Robertus de Anglia and the Oporto song collection, the musical evidence for French being a courtly language in Italy, Spanish polyphonic song 1450-70, texting in the chansonnier of Jean de Montchenu, tablatures for plucked instruments, and embellishments and urtext. The 16 essays were first published in various journals between 1977 and 1994. Distributed by Ashgate. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

The essays in this volume are concerned with song repertories and performance practice in 15th-century Europe. The first group of studies arises from the author's long-term fascination with the widely dispersed traces of English song and , in particular, with the most successful song by any English composer, O rosa bella. This leads to a set of enquiries into the distribution and international currents of the song repertory in Italy and Spain. The essays in the final section, taken together, represent an extended discussion of the problems of performance, both of voice and instrument, what they performed and how.